So Far From the Bamboo Grove   by Yoko Kawashima Watkins  $10.95

This is one of those very worthwhile books.  The author as a young girl, and her family, flee North Korea and their beautiful home in a bamboo grove, ahead of the Russians and North Korean Communists, and the Americans too.  Because they are Japanese and it is WW2.   Unsupportive of their own government's  role in starting the war in the Pacific, they are nevertheless caught up in the results.   They survive through amazing difficulties and make the trip across the strait to Japan where the struggle continues in a nation trying to rebuild itself.  Presents a perspective of WW2 rarely seen.  Riveting.  Ages 13 - 18 yrs